Social Media's Effect on Business

By Adam | 5 Oct 2015 11:00:00

How does social media effect businesses? Well, I know what's going to be the first thing to pop into everybody's mind: social media helps businesses increase brand awareness and to reach new people. That's true, that is probably the main way that businesses make use of the different social media platforms... But what else can it do? The answer is that it can go so far as to improve the products/services which businesses provide! This, in turn, is also likely to help with attracting more people.

So how does social media help businesses improve their services? Well, let's look at the recent example ofhotels in America. It seems that over six billion dollars’ worth of improvements were made to hotels over the last year and the reason behind it is that they're responding to what they read online. The internet gives people the perfect platform to write and share reviews; many people will write reviews on Facebook business pages and there are also services which are specifically designed around the writing and sharing of reviews. Before the internet, reviews wouldn't be quite as easy for hotels (and other small businesses) to come across, but now they can be easily accessed and if people are making a fair criticism of their service, they can then improve so that future customers will not be able to make the same complaint.

This is exactly the kind of thing which might prove to be very useful for you too. If something irritates a customer, it might put them off using your business again, but if something irritates a customer and they post it online, you might then be able improve in a way that will stop others from being turned away in future. Depending on the platform, you may even be able to interact with the person who wrote the original review and let them know that you're working towards fixing the problem! They'll be happy that their review was noticed and will likely be impressed with the fact that your business has taken steps to improve its service. So keep in mind that the internet, or more specifically the reviews that people write on it, can be a very useful resource for you! The better your service, the broader its appeal.